Warren Street

Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The Cobble Hill Historic District includes over twenty-two city blocks, generally between Atlantic Avenue, Court, Degraw and Hicks Streets. It is located approximately two blocks east of the Brooklyn waterfront of the Upper Bay. * It forms a southerly extension of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, separated from it only by Atlantic Avenue, yet it is quite different in character, having a unique quality of its own.

 

The development of Cobble Hill as a residential district really began in the mid-1830s when an attractive row of Greek Revival town houses was built, soon followed by others. It retains its residential character today, commercial areas being largely limited to Atlantic Avenue and Court- Street. There are- a representative number of fine churches.

 

Houses were either built individually or in rows, ranging anywhere from three houses to groups which occupied half a city block .In seme of those rows we find examples which are virtually unique in the City and which give Cobble Hill its special distinction.

 

Materials adhere closely to the masonry tradition with brick ana brownstone predominating. Ironwork includes both the standard designs and castings to be found in other parts of the City as well as several moss unusual designs net to He seen elsewhere. In .its quality, quantity and variety it is the equal of some of the best areas in the City. Cobble Kill is notable moreover as the site of one of the earliest housing projects in the country, the Heme and Tower Buildings of Jen Hicks Street. Landmarks in the field of tenement house reform, these buildings were developed by Alfred I. White, the Brooklyn capitalist and philanthropist, in association with William Field & Son, architects.

 

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

 

The history of Cobble Kill goes back to the 1640s when the Dutch governor, Willem Kieft, granted patents for farms north of Red Hook, extending inland from the East River shore to the Gowanus valley. The place names Red Hook. East River and Gowanus - in their Dutch spelling all appear en the Dutch patents.

 

A farm in this general area is thus described in the Labadists' travel diary of September 1679:

 

"It is impossible to tell how many peach trees we passed> all laden with fruit to breaking down.... We came to a place surrounded with such trees from which so many had fallen off that the ground could not be discerned, and you could not put your foot down without trampling them: and, notwithstanding such large quantities had fallen off, the trees still were as full as they could bear. The hogs and other animals mostly feed on them. This place belongs to the oldest European woman in the country. We went immediately into her house, where she lived with her children. We found her sitting by the fire, smoking tobacco incessantly, one pipe after another.... She was from Luyck (Liege), and still spoke good Waalsche (Walloon), with us.... She showed us several large apples, as good fruit of that country, and different from that of Europe. She had been fifty years now in the country.... We tasted here, for the first time, smoked twaelft (striped bass).... It was salted a little and then smoked, and, although it was now a year old, it was still perfectly good, and in flavor not inferior to smoked salmon. We drank here, also, the first new cider, which was very fine."

 

'"Cobleshill" on Ratzer's survey of Brooklyn in 1766-67, referred to a very steep conical hill shown on the west side of Red Hook Lane. near the present intersection of Atlantic and Pacific Streets with Court Street. Another old name for the region was ''Ponkiesbergh."

 

During the Revolution, Cobble Hill Fort consisted of a small platform with three cannon protected by spiral trenches; it was known also as ''Smith's Barbette" or "Corkscrew Fort". One of several forts intended to protect the flank of the patriot array in the Battle of Long Island, its importance, despite its small size, derived from its great height.

 

Washington issued an order on July 13, 1776 that two guns fired from Cobble Hill are to be the signal that the enemy have landed on Long Island. Washington, General Putnam and other officers witnessed the disastrous battle of August 27, 1776 from the ramparts of Cobble Hill Fort, according to Stiles, the 19th century Brooklyn historian. The British, during their subsequent occupation, cut off the top of Cobble Hill so that it would not command their headquarters on Brooklyn Heights. The British also appropriated the estate of Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and occupied it as a naval hospital. This estate ran south of Joralemon Street, and British sheds and huts for the sick were erected on property later owned by Ralph Patchen, south of the present Atlantic Avenue and within the Cobble Hill Historic District. During the War of 1812, Cobble Hill was again fortified and called "Fort Swift", as part of the lines of defense planned by General Joseph G. Swift, and erected in 1814 by inhabitants of Kings County.

 

In the Federal period, following the Revolution, Brooklyn Heights had been developed as a district of the incorporated Village of Brooklyn, which then extended to District Street (now Atlantic Avenue). In 163^, when the Village of Brooklyn became a City, its boundary was extended southward to include all of South Brooklyn.

 

Many changes came to Cobble Hill in the Federal period. The Dutch farms, extending from the East River to Court Street, were bought by relative newcomers. The old Red Hook Lane (later straightened into Court Street), Henry Street was opened by 1823 to connect directly with

 

the Heights. With ready access to the South Ferry,—established in 1836 after years of opposition from Manhattan real estate owners—Cobble Hill began to change from an area of farms into a residential suburb of row houses-. People could now commute readily to Manhattan by ferry.

 

The first stage in this development of Cobble Hill occurred in the blocks along the west side of Henry Street where the dramatic view of the harbor tempted owners to establish their rural homesteads or rural-suburban mansions. At the north end, Ralph Patchen, a native of Connecticut, had his heme just south of Atlantic Avenue in the bed of what later became Kicks Street he reached Red Hook Lane by a road known as Livingston's or Patchen's Lane. Nearby was his distillery and the large dock known as Patchen's dock. The next blockfront on Henry Street, originally part of the Patchen farm was acquired in the 1830s by Joseph A. Perry, and here stood Perry's handsome block-long Creek Revival mansion (also just outside this Historic District). Cornelius Heeney, a native of Ireland and successful New York fur merchant, acquired the next farm reputedly for a debt. His heme was at Henry and Amity Streets. On the next blockfront, near Warren Street, Noel (sometimes anglicized to Nicholas) Becar built, in the 1830s, his handsome Greek Revival mansion which faced the harbor, and on his grounds he had an unusually large greenhouse. Adjoining on the south, Parmenus Johnson maintained for the grounds of his new house the entire block between Henry and Hicks, Warren and Baltic Streets. He had come from Oyster Bay and purchased the old farm of the Suydam family, which he more than tripled in size by filling in and docking out upon his waterfront. His storage establishment was at the foot of Baltic Street. The southernmost farm, lying both within this Historic District and to the east and south of it, belonged to the Cornells, a family who had come from Queens in the mid-18th century. They acquired the farm by marrying into the family to whom it had been patented in the Dutch colonial period. The Cornell home and flour mill were near the harbor outside this District. A considerable portion of the Cornell farm within this District and south of Baltic Street was acquired by Selah Strong, Esq., a New York merchant and comptroller of that City. His home was in the bed of the present Strong Place.

 

None of these rural houses survive, nor is there any in the Colonial or Federal styles. However, serving as a reminder of this period, the Greek Revival house, still standing at No. 1^9 Baltic Street, was once the home of Parmenus Johnson's daughter. She married into the Bergen family, which descended from a Norwegian who settled in Brooklyn in the Dutch colonial period.

 

The next in the development of Cobble- Hill was the breaking

 

up of these large land holdings. Patchen's large farm, which occupied more than a dozen "blocks from above State Street south to Amity Street, was divided in 1829 primarily between his two sons and a married daughter, but even before this one block on Atlantic Avenue had been subdivided into lots. Closest of the farms to the old Brooklyn ferries, near Fulton Street, he did not have to delay development for the advent of the South Ferry at Atlantic Avenue. Indeed, the oldest house now standing in the Cobble Hill Historic District is No. 122 Pacific Street, built in or shortly before 1833, in the Greek Revival style, on Patchen's former farm. The next farm, Cornelius Heeney's, was developed according to the owner's special interests, A wealthy bachelor and a Roman Catholic., he was primarily interested in children, especially orphans. and in the Church. His gift of land to St. Paul:s Church enabled it to erect the first church building on Cobble Hill. In addition to his gifts to its orphanage much of his land, especially along Congress Street, was given to the Brooklyn Benevolent Society which is still in existence. Adjoining Heeney on the south and along Court. Street, Parmenus Johnson sold his eastern block and a half in 1332 to John Greacen for development.

 

The gridiron pattern of streets was established by 183^ south from Atlantic to Butler (subsequently Harrison and now Kane) Street. However, below Butler Street the old lanes and the new street design crisscrossed haphazardly for some time, except for Strong Place which was regulated and paved as early as 1-836. It was in this southern tier that assemblage and development progressed under Silas Butler, Thomas and Henry Warner, Anson Blake, Sr. and Jr., and Charles Kelsey, of whom at least the last-mentioned made his home here on Strong Place.

 

Comparison of the 1840 tax list and the 1840 street directory brings to light the information that, as early as this date, houses were assessed and 112 residents were listed in the District. Apparently many in-laws lived with each other or under the thumb of a paterfamilias. The possibility of bachelors living in boarding houses, as was then the fashion, has not been investigated. Many of the present streets appear in neither source, or with only empty lots listed.

 

Construction of row houses started to transform Cobble Hill into an urban community. Here, in contradistinction to Manhattan, the rows are seldom longer than five or six houses; furthermore, an architectural composition of two or three units was popular. A handsome row of six Greek Revival houses was built on Warren Street, between Court and Clinton, as early as 1835. This urbanization is especially apparent, according to the 1840 and 1841 tax lists, on the middle tier of blocks between Clinton and Henry Streets, where there already were rows of houses on Pacific, Warren and Baltic Streets, as well as on Strong Place. In 1845, according to the recollections of the Rev. Sewall S. Cutting of the Strong Place Baptist Church:

 

"On this side of Atlantic Street I recall no instance, in the streets running either way, unless near the river, where any street was built from one corner to another. In ' all the district from Atlantic Street to Carroll, the buildings were dwellings in detached clusters. Whole blocks were without a building on them, or with no more than two or three or four. Everywhere were footpaths across the blocks to make shorter routes to the South Ferry. My own family had been in 18^5 the first to occupy a house in the row of houses on Harrison (Kane) Street, fronting Strong Place' .

 

It is worth mentioning that New Yorkers were also interested in developing Cobble Hill. Thus, Henry Winthrop Sargent finished, about 1839, its longest early row of nine houses on Baltic Street, Abraham J. S. Degraw, a native New Yorker, who became a Cobble Hill suburbanite, built, in 1844, the only house still standing in spacious grounds (No. 219 Clinton Street); and the lawyer, Gerard W. Morris of 25 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, contributed an early instance of site development in his 1849-54 plans for the end. of a block on Kane Street. Prominent commuters to --lew York included James Van Nostrand, president, of the Merchants Exchange Bank of New York, and George A. Jarvis, president of the Lenox Insurance Company, who built residences at Nos. 439 and 491 Henry Street in the late 1840s.

 

In the 1850s, between Leonard Jerome's removal from Rochester and the erection of his mansion on Madison Square, he lived in two rented houses on Cobble Kill. The one on Amity Street was the birthplace of his daughter Jennie, the mother of Sir Winston Churchill.

 

By 1860 Cobble Hill had been largely developed into a suburban community, complete with bank, stores and other services, as well as with a number of churches whose towers or steeples rose against the skyline. The chief innovation after that date is Alfred T. White's well-known model tenements for the laboring classes. Built in 1876- 79, his projects covered more than a block and were occupied by many nationalities-—native Americans, Irish, Swedes, Norwegians, English and Germans.

 

The later story of Cobble Hill Historic District is largely told through the church buildings and their changing congregations. Christ (P.E.) Church, built in 1841-1842, was founded in 1835, as the first religious organization within this District: it now conducts services for a Spanish speaking community. The Middle Reformed Dutch Church building on Kane Street was later used by the German Lutherans and now is used as a synagogue. The permanent memorial of the German immigrants of 16^8 is not their churches, which now all belong to other faiths, but in the Long Island College Hospital which adjoins this Historic District on the northwest. Residents from New England, now also dispersed, made their Second Unitarian Church (where Cobble Hill Park is now located) into a cultural and abolitionist center. The Roman Catholic centers of St. Paul's on Court Street and of St. Peter's on Hicks Street included schools, an orphanage and a hospital. St. Paul's, originally Irish, now holds some Spanish masses. St. Peter's had so many Italians in its early congregation that it soon established a separate Italian mission church east of this Historic District. Now, Italians are the core of St. Frances Cabrini (R.C.) Chapel inside the District, rededicated in 19^9. This building was originally the Strong Place Baptist Church and was more recently used by Spanish-speaking Baptists. The Syrian and Lebanese community, long established on Cobble Hill, built St. Mary the Virgin (R.C.) Church on Clinton Street as early as 1922 and has since expanded. It is worth noting that the Spanish speaking community, divided among several religious organizations, come from various parts of the Western Hemisphere.

 

Through most of its urban life, Cobble Hill was known variously as part of Red Hook, South Brooklyn or the Sixth Ward. Today it has its own. identity, with the name Cobble Hill adopted in 1959- Moreover, it has undergone a marked renaissance and rejuvenation. More young people and people of affluence have moved in. Scheduled to open in January 1970 is the Strong Place Day Care Center with cafeteria, kindergarten and head start program. Recently four Puerto Rican families, who had been tenants, purchased a house on Clinton Street and converted it into a condominium. Householders, with a pride in their block, sweep not only their sidewalks but the gutters and streets around the parked automobiles. Very influential in the renaissance of this Historic District have been the Cobble Hill Association, incorporated in 1959, and the Syrian Young Men's Association, an old organization; also their current and previous presidents, Leo F. McCarthy, George Polimeros and George Saady. Among individuals, it is suitable to signalize Joseph Dowd, for many years the State Assemblyman for Cobble Hill, who has worked hard and long for the benefit of this community, and likewise Thomas Cuite, member of the City Council.

 

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

 

Cobble Hill is currently undergoing a renaissance as young couples acquire and renovate the attractive, moderate sized houses on its tree- lined streets. Like Brooklyn Heights, it is emerging from a rather long period of quiescence. This period actually protected it from the rapid pace of rebuilding and alteration, so typical of much of the City. Most of the fine old houses were preserved with little change. Apartment houses appeared in the area in the 1880s but they are not very high and few were built there after the 1920s. The fact that apartment houses did not invade the streets in recent years is responsible for the charming, low lying quality of this neighborhood where the skyline is punctuated occasionally only by church spires.

 

The real cause for alarm today is the "modernization" of houses by the application of spurious veneers. In these remodeling, handsome wood window sash is often replaced by aluminum windows with screens or storm sash set flush with the wall surface. This gives the houses a flat, cardboard appearance, where once they had interestingly revealed window openings set in walls of brick or stone - honest expressions of the actual structure.

 

The addition of an upper story or a reef parapet has almost invariably resulted in the loss of a fine cornice. Stoops have sometimes been removed to provide basement entrances. The partial imbedding of ironwork in concrete - an expedient method of repair - results in loss of considerable beauty. All these changes and "improvements" create jarring notes in otherwise harmonious rows of houses. These renovations, intended to increase property values, tend to have the opposite effect in Historic Districts, where the very thing that attracts buyers is wantonly destroyed.

 

Designation of the Cobble Hill Historic District will strengthen the aims of the community by tending to prevent the needless loss of architectural quality by attrition and by controlling future alterations and construction. Designation is a major step to ensure protection and enhancement of the quality and character of the entire neighborhood.

Done